Minefield immunity for ship of more than 400kt

[Lord Lancelot]

The combination of w190 hull, and minefield immunity is too strong,
Borg cube, Lizard T-Rex, UEA Law Dog and so on.

I propose that when you go over a fixed limit of speed you lose the
minefield immunity.

Ship going faster than w90 would be using the same formula for mine
hit damage of ship below hull of 400.

This should be the same for ship of 450kt or more vs web mine, if you
go at w91 or more than you use the same formula as ship below 450kt,
and also losing the only 10% of being stopped.

This would still let fleet of ships of 400kt or more move in at w90 to
engage the enemy worlds, but the defending could send his fleet at w90
to intercept the enemy...

P.S.
This rules would also be good for the SCAV Ina, if they go faster than
w90 they lose their special race bonus mine immunity.

Lord Lancelot

[rumata]

Post by Lord Lancelot
The combination of w190 hull, and minefield immunity is too strong,
Borg cube, Lizard T-Rex, UEA Law Dog and so on.

I agree, this needs to be changed (Especially for the Pyramid).

Post by Lord Lancelot
I propose that when you go over a fixed limit of speed you lose the
minefield immunity.

Yep, this would help.

Cheers,
Michael

[Lord Owl]

I'm a very big fan of the "big ships go through minefields" rule! But
you're right, it might be a tad unbalanced in the case of very fast
ships, so a speed limit is actually not a bad idea. 90 seems to be
rather strict though, how about 100 or even 120?
And restricting the minefield immunity of the Inamorata is of course
necessary, too. But since a Virgo towed by a fast ship would pose an
exception (or does a Virgo need to travel under its own power for the
minefield immunity?), let's make it simple, and make a rule only for
the big ship issue for now.

[Lord Lancelot]

Post by Lord Owl
I'm a very big fan of the "big ships go through minefields" rule! But
you're right, it might be a tad unbalanced in the case of very fast
ships, so a speed limit is actually not a bad idea. 90 seems to be
rather strict though, how about 100 or even 120?
And restricting the minefield immunity of the Inamorata is of course
necessary, too. But since a Virgo towed by a fast ship would pose an
exception (or does a Virgo need to travel under its own power for the
minefield immunity?), let's make it simple, and make a rule only for
the big ship issue for now.

W90 is better, because it allow more race to meet an attacking faster
fleet, when they need to slow down in mines.
Not a lot of races have descent warp battle at w120.

Worse case scenario, a new Hconfig switch for the speed, and we could
start the default at 90, and raise it later if needed.

I see no reason to reduce the Virgo ability vs minefield, since it
cost a lot.

Lord Lancelot

[rumata]

Post by Lord Owl
I'm a very big fan of the "big ships go through minefields" rule! But
you're right, it might be a tad unbalanced in the case of very fast
ships, so a speed limit is actually not a bad idea. 90 seems to be
rather strict though, how about 100 or even 120?
And restricting the minefield immunity of the Inamorata is of course
necessary, too.

A fixed cut-off speed is possibly not the best approach. However, the
current situation is utterly ridiculous. The only mine-related thing I
pay attention to (with cubes) is that I don't end movement in
minefields. Otherwise I mostly ignore them.

Yes, big ships should take less damage from mines, but under the
current rules, the only mine-type which does still a bit of damage
(barbs), has so abysmally small hit-odds as to be irrelevant as well.
Fixing the mine-math, so that traveling through mines has noticeably
higher hit-odds at higher speeds (per distance, not per tick) might be
a good approach.

Post by Lord Owl
But since a Virgo towed by a fast ship would pose an
exception (or does a Virgo need to travel under its own power for the
minefield immunity?), let's make it simple, and make a rule only for
the big ship issue for now.

I seem to remember a recent host-change that takes the immunity away
if the Virgo is towed.

Cheers,
Michael

[Lord Lancelot]

Post by rumata
I seem to remember a recent host-change that takes the immunity away
if the Virgo is towed.
Cheers,
Michael

Yes Virgo has to travel by it's own mean to get the immunity.

Lord Lancelot

[Ashtar]

The fact 450+ tons 190 ly ships are virtually immune to minefield is
even more worst than mentioned here when taking into account escort
and intercept.


I came to learn the hard way that:
- Intercept-escort range is 100% your speed if faster or equal speed
than the opponent.
- Intercept-escort range is 40-50% your speed if slower speed than the
opponent. *Might* be increase if you move away from ennemy in first
half movement ticks.


For me, the realisation of this got amplified by my webs being
ineffective and dealing with 190ly ships of 450+ tons running tough
them.

In all escort intercept manoeuver, ships head toward the ennemy and
loop back if they misses. And they will miss most of the time if they
are slower than the ennemy. This effectively means for the defender
that unlss he have equally faster ships, he will have to keep his
fleet static, unable to defend the whole of his empire when on the
contrary, a defender with 190ly ships is insured to be able ot escort-
intercept anything that comes in within 100-190ly depending if he
escort or auto-intercept without fear of missing the ennemy.

Slowing ennemy movement is the job of minefield and i would put a real
emphasise on Lancelot phrase, and i quote:

''W90 is better, because it allow more race to meet an attacking
faster
fleet, when they need to slow down in mines.
Not a lot of races have descent warp battle at w120. ''

So yes, limiting immunity to 90 speed is definetely a good idea.
Myself would litterally remove that 450 hull immunity but it is
another story.

[protomatter]

Post by Lord Lancelot
The combination of w190 hull, and minefield immunity is too strong,
Borg cube, Lizard T-Rex, UEA Law Dog and so on.

far as i know these ships you list dont have minefield immunity.
and even if they escorted a virgo that would only give them a max
speed of 90 lyrs anyhow. as towing the virgo wont or shouldnt produce
minefield immunity for the escorting fleet.

Post by Lord Lancelot
I propose that when you go over a fixed limit of speed you lose the
minefield immunity.

this would only effect the scavs and the RCS scout ship( the RCS scout
ship i think should be allowed it continue as is)

Post by Lord Lancelot
Ship going faster than w90 would be using the same formula for mine
hit damage of ship below hull of 400.

as mentioned above only two ships have that capability

Post by Lord Lancelot
This should be the same for ship of 450kt or more vs web mine, if you
go at w91 or more than you use the same formula as ship below 450kt,
and also losing the only 10% of being stopped.

the scav fix i liked best was no cloak with minefield immunity thus
this w90 rule wouldnt be needed. that or allow cloaked immunity. but
not both.

Post by Lord Lancelot
This would still let fleet of ships of 400kt or more move in at w90 to
engage the enemy worlds, but the defending could send his fleet at w90
to intercept the enemy...
Lord Lancelot

one thing i dont like about large ships plowing thru minefields is in
regards to web minefields. ships seem to plow thru thus recieving
limited damage. i would like to see this changed a tad it shouldnt be
a garunteed plow thru. it should be more like a greater chance of plow
thru. however if they fail that chance to plow thru they should be
immediately stopped and stuck in the field at that location of the
fail. and it should be registered as a chance per hit. as opposed to a
chance per turn which allows successful plow thru for the entire turn.
perhaps ship skill could increase the odds of plow thru. giving as
much as 10% more ability depending on skill with a base chance of 80%
for a skoll of zero.

anyhow thats my two cents. as i dont see much with immunity that can
move at warp 91+ and i would hope that rebels alien hulls would not be
allowed to use RXX commands to gain minefield immunity for alien
hulls. not sure if this is possible can anyone confirm?

Proto

[rumata]

Post by protomatter

Post by Lord Lancelot
The combination of w190 hull, and minefield immunity is too strong,
Borg cube, Lizard T-Rex, UEA Law Dog and so on.

far as i know these ships you list dont have minefield immunity.

A bit of sloppy phrasing :-). What he means is the reduced minefield
damage for hulls over 400kt. I've no experience with either T-Rex or
Law Dog, but for Annihilation Cubes (and the Great Pyramid I guess) it
pretty much _does_ come down to a immunity (i.e. one can ignore mine-
field effects during movement).
Lord Lancelot and I argue that this reduced damage, combined with the
high speed of these hulls is just too much. If these abilities are
exploited by an aggressive player, prospects for opponents are dim,
especially if they don't have any capable transwarp hulls.

Cheers,
Michael

[Phaidros]

Post by rumata
A bit of sloppy phrasing :-). What he means is the reduced minefield
damage for hulls over 400kt. I've no experience with either T-Rex or
Law Dog, but for Annihilation Cubes (and the Great Pyramid I guess) it
pretty much _does_ come down to a immunity (i.e. one can ignore mine-
field effects during movement).
Lord Lancelot and I argue that this reduced damage, combined with the
high speed of these hulls is just too much. If these abilities are
exploited by an aggressive player, prospects for opponents are dim,
especially if they don't have any capable transwarp hulls.
Cheers,
Michael

That's why I whined from my experience with you in the P4 League game
that the Borg Anni is a game-ending ship right now. Such an awesome
combination of firepower, speed and minefield immunity is just too
much.

I am very much in favour of a regulating the minefield hit chance
through the ship speed.

Phaidros

[rumata]

Post by Phaidros

Post by rumata
A bit of sloppy phrasing :-). What he means is the reduced minefield
damage for hulls over 400kt. I've no experience with either T-Rex or
Law Dog, but for Annihilation Cubes (and the Great Pyramid I guess) it
pretty much _does_ come down to a immunity (i.e. one can ignore mine-
field effects during movement).
Lord Lancelot and I argue that this reduced damage, combined with the
high speed of these hulls is just too much. If these abilities are
exploited by an aggressive player, prospects for opponents are dim,
especially if they don't have any capable transwarp hulls.
Cheers,
Michael

That's why I whined from my experience with you in the P4 League game
that the Borg Anni is a game-ending ship right now. Such an awesome
combination of firepower, speed and minefield immunity is just too
much.

Game-ending is such a nasty word. It is (or used to be) the best all-
round battleship in the game imo. It is a Borg's only capable fighting
ship though, not complemented by anything medium. If you have to
purchase firepower in 30K mc and 4k metall increments, every loss
hurts very much. Hence a Borg needs to employ an interesting mixture
of recklessness and caution to be successful. Not many people seem to
be good at this.

Post by Phaidros
I am very much in favour of a regulating the minefield hit chance
through the ship speed.

That is nominally the case already. However, I believe the the chance
of hitting a mine is calculated per tick. Since one covers more
distance per tick at higher speed, the average number of minehits per
distance is actually not significantly higher at high speed (my tests
were a few hosts ago though). Fixing this, so that the chance of
minehit per distance rises at least linearly with speed, might go a
long way to address Lord Lancelot and my concerns.

Cheers,
Michael

[protomatter]

Post by rumata
A bit of sloppy phrasing :-). What he means is the reduced minefield
damage for hulls over 400kt. I've no experience with either T-Rex or
Law Dog, but for Annihilation Cubes (and the Great Pyramid I guess) it
pretty much _does_ come down to a immunity (i.e. one can ignore mine-
field effects during movement).
Lord Lancelot and I argue that this reduced damage, combined with the
high speed of these hulls is just too much. If these abilities are
exploited by an aggressive player, prospects for opponents are dim,
especially if they don't have any capable transwarp hulls.
Cheers,
Michael

ok now im following this subject, yeah in retrospect i liked the way
it worked before the high mass immunity plow thru. folks complained
peeple hid behind thier minefields, and the plow thru was the answer/
result. weaking lots of races defensive capabilities. if i could argue
for a return to the old days i would. but i would probably fail, as
many of the aggressive players dont like defensive players using
minefields. for me it was a tactic of warfare. for others, they wanted
to see agressive actions only in the game. they didnt want to have to
build fleets of minesweepers. the crystals have been weakened to some
extent as a result. but they needed a tone down anyhow, not sure this
is the one to do it as it effects other races as well accross the
board.

however since the subject is that of high mass plow thru my first
response is bring back the old days. my second response is the 90 lyr
proposal is not something of value for me back. annis recieve 1%
damage per hit. dunno bout lawdogs. 1% is a joke first off and since
all high mass hulls come with huge repair unit storage i never saw the
point. the only thing i enjoyed about the whole original proposal was
that high mass ships wouldnt be stopped by a web field. and even then
i wasnt all that thrilled. id like to see a return of the old days.
good luck with this subject.

Protoreturn

[rumata]

Post by protomatter

Post by rumata
A bit of sloppy phrasing :-). What he means is the reduced minefield
damage for hulls over 400kt. I've no experience with either T-Rex or
Law Dog, but for Annihilation Cubes (and the Great Pyramid I guess) it
pretty much _does_ come down to a immunity (i.e. one can ignore mine-
field effects during movement).
Lord Lancelot and I argue that this reduced damage, combined with the
high speed of these hulls is just too much. If these abilities are
exploited by an aggressive player, prospects for opponents are dim,
especially if they don't have any capable transwarp hulls.
Cheers,
Michael

ok now im following this subject, yeah in retrospect i liked the way
it worked before the high mass immunity plow thru. folks complained
peeple hid behind thier minefields, and the plow thru was the answer/
result. weaking lots of races defensive capabilities. if i could argue
for a return to the old days i would.

I think the big mine laying races are still doing ok. So I'd argue
that minefields have been too cost effective in the past. That was
bad, and it was changed.
However, against a select few hulls they are currently not cost
effective at all. That's bad as well and should be changed. The more I
think about, the more I dislike a speed limit though. There's already
_far_ too many ad-hoc fixes involving limits and step functions in
this game.

Cheers,
Michael

[LeeSMaz]

Please consider the poor Dracs in whatever u do.
They are slow, they are weak,

This latest change has now made them even far weaker..no defense as
well.

Cheers.
Lee.

ps. Just got obliterated by a Borg. X3002.
Even after getting a ton of cash from destroying a privateer world.
My mines were totally useless, as were my ships, when and if they ever
got to engage,
generally in small number due to slow speed.
Yep , yet to be cheap jump gates proved not useful.

Got to watch a single cube obliterate 7 dreadnaughts, lol.
Had some 40 odd ships,13 dreadnaughts and rest destroyers etc in a
fleet go up against 4 cubes(he did have 15 cubes,
I had total 25 dreadnaughts) and lose. Took out 1 cube, nearly 2.
So yes, the Barb fields were necessary to slow the cubes down and
allow Dracs to retreat
or withdraw or regroup etc. Now this is so totally wrong.
With almost no damage after multiple barb hits, sailed right in
through all defenses,
no regrouping points were useful, abandoned homeworld with speed 80
pods, through
ooddles of minefields, but cubes chased the pods down, no probs, Barbs
are useless now.
As are Drac ships I might add...he chased them down in small groups as
well through minefields.

[rumata]

Post by LeeSMaz
Please consider the poor Dracs in whatever u do.
They are slow, they are weak,

We are not doing anything. We are stating the situation as we see it,
and hope that Magik/Tim take appropriate action.

Post by LeeSMaz
This latest change has now made them even far weaker..no defense as
well.

The current mine-damage rules have been around for more than a year
afaik.

Post by LeeSMaz
ps. Just got obliterated by a Borg. X3002.

Good to hear that other people do well with the Borg :-).

Post by LeeSMaz
Got to watch a single cube obliterate 7 dreadnaughts, lol.
Had some 40 odd ships,13 dreadnaughts and rest destroyers etc in a
fleet go up against 4 cubes(he did have 15 cubes,
I had total 25 dreadnaughts) and lose. Took out 1 cube, nearly 2.
So yes, the Barb fields were necessary to slow the cubes down and
allow Dracs to retreat

I think you did very well actually. You managed to engage 1/4 of his
fleet with 1/2 of your fleet, despite the dracs completely inferior
mobility. Just from the numbers 15 (Annihilation?) cubes against 25
(Titus?) dreadnaughts, he had probably invested somewhere between 1.5
to 3 times as much money and metals (depending on equipment) and
_should_ have won.

As the Dracs you have very little chance against a well played Borg
(and most other races). You would need to nail down the hive before
turn 10-14, and you don't really have the means to achieve that. Once
he's building Cubes it's pretty much over.

Also, from my limited experience (playing against the dracs), the Fang
class destroyer seems to be a better choice than the Titus.

Cheers,
Michael

[Lord Lancelot]

The Drac have a descent ship list, backed with prisoners they can win
games. But like all prisoner race without them they will be very weak,
but with them they can be very strong.

Last year Asthar played the drac in a P4League game, and won the game
(all other race have been killed by turn 60, including a strong
Robot...

The drac can take prisoner at turn 10-15 and start from there, but yes
vs the borg they are in trouble like most race since the w190 cube can
board anything and can fight well if forced.

Lord Lancelot

[Myflowers]

Post by Lord Lancelot
Last year Asthar played the drac in a P4League game, and won the game
(all other race have been killed by turn 60, including a strong
Robot...

IMHO, you shouldn't set Dracs as "balanced" or "same as other slave
races" just because one player won in one game. You know, as well I do
and many others too, that a game isn't just you playing against other
races... it's you playing against other poeple with RL issues that can
change day to day. Ashtar did it well, but I'm pretty sure that the
others did it very bad.
If you let a race grow and become strong, then this race could win...
although this races is "weak". This isn't a balancing matter, it's a
"Human Error" matter.

[Lord Lancelot]

Post by Myflowers

Post by Lord Lancelot
Last year Asthar played the drac in a P4League game, and won the game
(all other race have been killed by turn 60, including a strong
Robot...

IMHO, you shouldn't set Dracs as "balanced" or "same as other slave
races" just because one player won in one game. You know, as well I do
and many others too, that a game isn't just you playing against other
races... it's you playing against other poeple with RL issues that can
change day to day. Ashtar did it well, but I'm pretty sure that the
others did it very bad.
If you let a race grow and become strong, then this race could win...
although this races is "weak". This isn't a balancing matter, it's a
"Human Error" matter.

I agree the Drac could be improved a little bit, mostly to reduce the
micro needed to play them, since their low cargo room. Give them a
little more speed.
And need some flavour.
I have played them once and also won my game with them, I have
developed a Strat that could lead them to victory in a very
competitive P4League game, (or any other).
My only worry with the Drac is Mattrix is now in charge and a said it
will change them drastically, so I will not play them until he do so.
See the proposal I have for them, with others input like Ashtar...

http://planets4.hood-net.org/wiki/index.php/The_Holy_Draconian_Empire_-_Ship_Change_Proposal

Lord Lancelot